


All He Knows of Bliss

by phaetonschariot



Series: Mutual Service [5]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-19
Updated: 2012-04-19
Packaged: 2017-11-03 22:01:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/386424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phaetonschariot/pseuds/phaetonschariot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Title from Lord Byron: "Who falls from all he knows of bliss, Cares little into what abyss."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It was just bad luck, really. Ianto's mission was hardly dangerous, a brief stop by the bank to make a deposit, expected to take no more than half an hour and that was if he stopped off somewhere on the way back for food. He hadn't counted on the robbery.

The man had wild, reddened eyes as he talked about safety deposit boxes and Ianto wasn't entirely sure how any of it happened before the sharp report of a gun filled his hearing and something slammed into his shoulder. It hurt, and he staggered backwards, but... whether it was shock or adrenalin or something else, the wound didn't seem to bother him nearly as much as it should.

A memory sprang to mind - an episode of Lois and Clark, of all things, in which the mild-mannered hero was shot and had to fake a reaction to the "injury", unable to let anyone realise he was rather unnaturally bulletproof. He laughed, possibly slightly hysterically, and sat down rather quicker than he ought, the landing almost more painful than the bullet had been, and a woman hurried over to hover anxiously while the robber was led off somewhere by the near-panicked bank manager.

"Oh god, oh god," the woman chanted, pushing at his suit jacket to try to press down hard on the injury, and when Ianto looked down he thought there should probably have been more blood than that.

"It's okay, I don't think it hit anything important." The pressure of her hands ached in a way that was almost more annoying than the wound itself, and he wondered how long until the damage started to transfer and whether he'd get back first. Probably not, there'd be police and ambulances and fuck, he'd just have to pull rank, call Owen or something. It probably wouldn't improve their reputation with the police department, but maybe he could send them something as an apology, or at least write a nice email. They did poorly enough, with Jack wandering round the city alternately flirting with and rudely ignoring people in turn with nary a thought for the consequences.

He was vaguely aware of some of the other bankers escaping, with no one waving a gun around at them - this whole thing really hadn't been planned very well, he suspected - and at least two people were digging out mobile phones. Somewhere, a panic button had probably been hit too, and the police wouldn't take long to get here. Right, definitely calling the Hub. His phone was in his inside pocket (next to where his holster would be if he was wearing one, and he cursed himself for an idiot), and he ignored his would-be heroine to pull it out and hit speed-dial one. "Sir? We've got a situation."

*

Jack listened to Ianto's recitation of events with mounting tension, crossing the Hub in swift strides as he headed from his office to Owen's medical bay. If he was going to be shot slowly through the shoulder, he wanted painkillers and bandages. At least it had been a bloody boring day so far - this sort of thing was much easier to deal with when he didn't have people out all over the city investigating rift spikes or energy readings.

At Owen's questioning look he held up a finger, not wanting to interrupt Ianto, and leaned down to quickly scribble on a piece of paper - 'bank robbery shot thru shoulder', a little sad face to further illustrate his point - and the doctor nodded, pulling open drawers to grab what Jack would need. "I'm going to flash my ID and tell them we have our own doctor," Ianto was saying, voice slightly warped by the phone lines though no less lyrical, and then quite suddenly there was a fumble, a muttered curse, and the line went dead.

Jack pulled the phone away from his ear to stare at it as though this would somehow reveal what just happened, but all the screen told him was "call ended" and the length of the conversation in minutes and seconds, a paltry substitute for actual information.

Dammit.

"Make that to go," he told Owen. "I need to get over there."

*

The tires of the SUV screeched as Jack slammed on the brakes outside AIB, slanted across the road in no real attempt to actually park - but then, Owen mused, none of the police cars really had, either. Ianto was standing against the wall of the building, talking to a uniformed police officer and pressing a hand to his shoulder under the covering of his suit jacket; Jack's door slammed open and the American (or whatever he was) was striding across the concrete towards him before Owen or Gwen could say anything. Their doors opened in unison, rounding the car to follow - Owen with his medkit, Gwen with her eye on the officer.

Why the bloody teaboy couldn't do his banking at bloody Barclays on the Quay Owen didn't have a clue, really.

"Okay, doctor, coming through!" he declared, pushing past the usual crowd of lollygaggers and bystanders. 

"Not one of yours, is it?" The copper was speaking to Gwen, some blond twat who looked like he was barely out of high school.

"Don't think so, but he is," she replied with a smile, gesturing to Ianto. Jack was already moving clothing aside to get at the teaboy's shoulder, and Owen just shoved in next to him, pulling out disinfectant wipes and gauze.

Ianto nodded politely at the officer as though he wasn't standing on a street with his shirt half-off and a hole through his shoulder. "Ianto Jones, Torchwood General Support. Nice to meet you."

Bloody hell. Owen shook his head in disbelief, shooting Ianto a sharp look. "Yeah, General Support, from the Latin for 'not supposed to be getting shot, you stupid bastard'. Are you done? This'll be easier back at the lab." It looked like it was starting to heal already, but he could tell from the positioning and the mess he could still see that it ought to have had him pale-faced and lying on a stretcher with paramedics attempting to staunch blood loss. The fact that he was standing around as though he had a bloody paper cut was just damn unnerving. "Really shouldn't need a hospital. Looks like it missed all the major blood vessels," he lied, for the cop's benefit. He glanced up at Gwen, nodding ever so slightly at the guy, and she nodded back and started leading him away so the three men could talk with some modicum of privacy.

"Careful, Owen, I might start to think you liked me," Ianto commented drily, wincing slightly at the burn of iodine. The very human reaction relieved Owen inexplicably - at least he wasn't completely outside the bounds of logical medicine. "Jack, whatever the man stole, it was alien tech. I couldn't identify it by sight, but it definitely wasn't anything from Earth."

"Damn. No chance we can track him?"

Ianto shook his head, making his shoulders move, and Owen glared at him as he repositioned the gauze and taped it on. "Do your back in the car," he said, pulling his gloves off. "Come on, before Jack starts bleeding everywhere."

He started walking with the expectation that the others would follow, and they did, Jack calling Gwen back over as they walked. "First thing is to find out what it was," he told her. "You and Tosh find out who the owner of that box was, go talk to them."

"Take my car," Ianto added, digging keys out of his pocket and tossing them to her. " _Don't_ leave food wrappers in it, I've only had it a week. Red Audi, over there."

"You couldn't _be_ more metrosexual, could you?" Owen smirked at him, opening the driver's door - no way he was letting either of the others drive, with Ianto's wound still healing and Jack's undoubtably starting to form. He'd wonder when working for Torchwood had gotten so weird, but it was a sort of pointless question, considering the circumstances he'd been hired under.

Ianto slid into the back seat easily, rolling his eyes, and Jack hesitated before opening the front passenger door. "I like the Audi," Ianto said, passing a couple of painkillers from the medkit forward for Jack. "It may not be the bastard lovechild of the car from Knight Rider, but it's very reliable."

"Are you making fun of my car?" Jack twisted in his seat to mock-scowl at Ianto, and Owen resisted the urge to brake suddenly.

"Certainly not, sir. We have the rest of Cardiff for that."

"You know, you're awfully cheeky when you've been shot."

"Must be the adrenalin. Won't happen again, sir." Owen could see the small smile in the rear view mirror, one that on anyone else he'd almost call flirty, and was suddenly glad it was a short drive back to the Hub.

*

Ianto didn't allow himself to feel anything until he was safely in his quarters, looking for a new shirt. Halfway through unbuttoning the soiled and torn one he quite suddenly felt a wave of dizziness and sat on the edge of the bed quickly, head down, taking in huge gulps of air as he allowed the day to catch up to him.

Oh god, he'd been shot right through the shoulder. He'd probably have bled out or something if things were how they should have been. He'd seen the look on Owen's face, the one that said his injury was too weird to be normal, that there should have been much more blood and much more pain and no... standing against a wall chatting with PC Davidson. "Just a flesh wound," he'd said with far too steady a smile. "I'll be alright until my colleagues get here, they're not far."

That unflappability seemed far away now. _He was never going to die._ There was nothing special about him that should have led to this. No radioactive spider bites, no crash landing in an escape pod from another planet, no SIS or MI6 training. He was just a normal Welsh boy who hadn't particularly excelled at anything except loving too much and too deeply, and now his life was aliens and rifts and Timelords and immortality and finding out how extremely well another man kissed.

He choked back a laugh, dropping back onto the mattress to curl up on his side, vaguely aware that he was shaking. He was probably in shock or something, really, and he wondered randomly whether that would be transferred too, or if it was only physical damage. What if he went hiking in the dead of winter with inadequate clothing? Would Jack get hypothermia? Frostbite? Would he? What if he _blew up_? (For that matter, what if Jack blew up? He had a mental image of the pieces moving of their own volition, reforming, and felt faintly sick.)

It was as well that he wasn't needed anywhere, he decided, because he wasn't entirely sure he could stand.

*

While Ianto was having a well-deserved breakdown in his room, Gwen was sitting in the passenger seat of Tosh's car, having left the Audi in the carpark under the Millennium Centre. She had her PDA out - no street maps spread over the dashboard, not for Torchwood - and was navigating for Tosh as they drove through the streets towards the home of Margaret Llewellyn, the owner of box 23772. "Hang a left here." It was a nice neighbourhood, really, lots of nice two storey family houses with mowed lawns and rose bushes. She wondered if she and Rhys would ever have a place like that, a couple of kids playing out the back, maybe... though the longer she stayed at Torchwood, the more it seemed that such a normal life was a bit of a silly dream, when she knew what was really out there. It wasn't like she could drive children to football games and swim classes where she'd stand on the sidelines and cheer, when she might have to go haring off at any time to do something utterly mad.

And she couldn't leave Torchwood. Couldn't leave Jack. She knew that already, a fact. Whatever happened, she was in for the long haul.

Tosh spotted the street they were looking for and turned onto it, glancing at her own PDA to check the house number. It was only a few down from the corner and looked much like the others, nothing to make it stand out. Tidy, nicely painted, a light pink colour that ought to have been ridiculous on a house but seemed to look alright on these old wooden things. Still, Gwen checked her holster as she slid out of the car, the gesture becoming habit by now. Christ, and she hadn't even fired a gun before when she was still with the police!

The front path was lined with flower beds, though much of the space was empty, dark earth showing up through the plants, though there were no signs of weeds. Clearly this was a house that was kept up with, and Gwen thought of her own flat, with the window that needed fixing and two nights worth of dishes still sitting on the bench, with a bit of a guilty twinge. Just ahead of her, Tosh stepped up onto the verandah and knocked on the door. There was a grass mat in front of it that said 'welcome' in Welsh, and Gwen smiled a little at the sight. 

They weren't waiting long, though, before the knock was answered by a tall, thin woman, white hair tucked up into a bun. Unlike some elderly people, she looked fit and alert, and Gwen could easily imagine her outside with a pair of hedge clippers, tending the garden. What she did not look like, however, was the sort of person who might keep alien technology in a safety box at a bank. "Margaret Llewellyn, is it?" she asked with a bland dealing-with-the-public smile. Andy had always gotten her to talk to people. When he did it, he too-often said something sarcastic that could be taken the wrong way. When the woman nodded, peering eagle-eyed at them through her glasses, Gwen continued, "We're with the police. I'm Gwen Cooper, and this is Toshiko Sato. I understand you hold a safety deposit box at AIB, on Callaghan Square?"

Margaret Llewellyn sighed. "You'll be Torchwood then, I suppose. Come in, then, and I'll put the kettle on."

And with that, she turned and walked off into the house.

*

With Owen's strong painkillers in his system, Jack had lost track of time, lying on the couch in his office with the pain in his shoulder reduced to a dull ache. Actually the slight fog over his mind was sort of nice... relaxing, like the stage just before proper drunkenness when you were just heavy-limbed and lazy and everything seemed warm. He wasn't sure what he'd expected, for the first time Ianto got actually hurt in any real way, whether he'd be annoyed or resentful. He could deal with anger better than resentment, he thought; it burned hot and faster, where resentment lingered and coloured everything in ugly shades. He couldn't be angry, though, not at Ianto - at the bank robber, of course, who from the sounds of it might well have been high on some kind of drug, but there was little he could do about that right now except wait for Gwen and Tosh to come back with more information. And far from resentment, he actually felt-- grateful. It was strange, very strange, because it was a little bit crazy to be grateful for a gunshot wound to the shoulder, and he was sure it would wear off in time, but for now, well. He'd been through a hell of a lot worse, and he was quite rapidly coming to realise that he could like Ianto Jones quite a lot, entirely on his own merits. Love him, even, because even as Jack was fantastic at sex, he was pretty damn good at loving people, too. When he let himself.

Even knowing Ianto would be alright he'd felt a stab of fear on hearing that he'd been hurt. He wondered if that would ever go away, and then thought back to those in the past who'd known of his curse of life, the things they'd said. That seeing him die never stopped being upsetting. Even the ones that seemed to become really comfortable with it had never gotten to the point where death - even the ones he was quick to come back from, the gunshots and electrocutions and drownings - was taken lightly. He felt, for the first time, that he was starting down the road of actually understanding how they felt.

Eventually Ianto came in with a cup of coffee, crouching down next to him and holding it out for him to take, carefully, like Jack was a sick child. That was nice, too - best thing about injuries, being tended to afterwards, and he opened his mouth to wonder aloud if he could get Ianto into a nurse's outfit before rethinking the urge. Possibly a bit too soon. "Thanks," he said instead, letting the drink warm him inside. "How're you feeling?"

"Better. You?" He settled down on the floor, leaning sideways against the couch so that Jack could feel their shoulders pressing at cross-angles, Ianto's right and his left.

At the question he flexed his other arm, wincing slightly at the pain even through the drugs. But he was quite intimately acquainted with gunshots, and this one seemed easier than most. "I think it's healing while it's still forming," he realised, a small note of surprise in his voice at the idea. "Not as fast as I usually do, but it won't take as long to recover after it's done. Like running a bath when the plug's not in."

Ianto tilted his head slightly at the analogy. "Is the water the wound or the healing?" he asked, and the way his mouth shaped the word 'wound' slipped its way into Jack's mind. Gorgeous accent, that.

"Does it matter?"

"Probably not." He lapsed into thoughtful silence for a moment, then turned to look up at Jack seriously. "What happens if you get dismembered? Or decapitated? Do you grow a new body, grow a new head, or have to have the pieces put back together so the flesh can re-knit?"

Well that was... macabre. But probably something he should've expected, if he wasn't so doped up and pleasantly fuzzy. It was hard to think back to the first few times he'd died, but he was sure if he could with any degree of accuracy he'd recall exactly the confusion and anxiety that Ianto was feeling now. And he hadn't had anyone to ask, only a vague hope that he'd be able to track down the Doctor again and _beat_ the answers out of him if he had to.

Of course, he knew now that the Doctor didn't entirely have them, but at least he had some experience to share. "If the pieces are close enough they knit back together, otherwise they have to regrow. Haven't actually had my head chopped off yet so I can't answer that one. Not rushing to try it, either."

Ianto made a noise that Jack was coming to think of as his "mental cataloging" noise, the sound that accompanied the processing of new information, generally when he was deep in thought. He shifted on the couch enough to nudge his shoulder, gently. "Did you freak out yet?"

The question prompted a smile that he just had to grin back at. "A little bit," Ianto confessed. "It's... a lot to take in. How long...." 

He trailed off, but Jack could almost hear what he was thinking. "Took me, oh, a few years. I didn't know what was happening. At first I didn't even realise I'd been actually dying, but it got a bit hard to ignore eventually. And... well, like the Doctor said. It's not supposed to happen, so it wasn't like I could go down to the library and read up on it. No, we are utterly unique in the universe, Ianto Jones. Though I knew that about you already."

As he'd hoped, the light flirtation made Ianto laugh, a sound that was all the more precious for its infrequency. Twisting carefully, he hooked his left hand around the back of Ianto's head, tilting it up so he could kiss him. This, this he could definitely get used to. Ianto gave himself entirely to kissing, unashamedly, putting a feeling into it that appealed to the romanticism that still lurked somewhere in Jack, that even a hundred years on the slow path hadn't been able to gouge out of him. Maybe he didn't believe in love everlasting anymore, but there were definitely still moments, intense and true whether they remained literal moments or dragged on over the years.

They really, really needed to find the time to do this properly. On a nice bed. Sometime when they knew they had hours so Jack could just kiss him like this, slow and sensual until neither of them could stand it anymore. He was pretty sure Ianto'd never been with a man before, and he loved that, loved the excitement of being the first, but not the _first_ , when his partner was comfortable enough with the idea of sex and their own body, but he still had so many things to show them and he could see the look on their face as they learned his body and the pleasure he could bring them. And he was also pretty sure that Ianto would make some _delicious_ noises when he was turned on, even better than the soft 'mmm's that Jack could work out of him with his tongue, running across his lips or teeth, dipping deeper into his mouth, toying playfully with him.

Ianto pulled away reluctantly after a minute, and it was only the ruefulness on his face that made Jack let him go without pulling him back for more. "Gwen and Tosh will be back soon," he murmured, and sucked his lower lip into his mouth slightly in a way that Jack was entirely certain he was unaware of, but that he should do far more often. "I'll check on you again in a bit."

"If that's the way you check on people you can do it as often as you like," he teased, and was gratified when something danced in Ianto's eyes in reply.

"Sir," he said, but there was humour in it, and Jack leaned back on the couch with a grin as he was left alone again.


	2. Chapter 2

"Call me Margaret, please," Mrs Llewellyn had said, and now she was seated in an arm chair, Tosh and Gwen on the sofa with cups of what was really quite a nice tea. Settled, now, their minds seemed to simultaneously turn back to the reason they were here; Gwen was just opening her mouth to speak when Margaret beat her to it. "So, Robbie's got it back, then."

That gave them a name, at least, but, "Robbie?" Gwen asked, to clarify.

"My nephew. Robert Bowen. My sister's been dead many years now, and god knows his father was never very reliable, but I did try to keep him grounded. Then he found that thing, and, well, you know Cardiff. Odd things happening all the time, and everyone has their theories. Then someone will see your big black car and it all goes back to normal. I wanted to take it to that nice young lad in the Tourist Office, but Robbie wouldn't hear a word of it."

For all they were supposed to be a secret organisation, it really was amazing how much people knew about them, Gwen thought. Then again they all thought it was a bit of a laugh that they had "TORCHWOOD" emblazoned across the side of the SUV, a car that was already not particularly inconspicuous. Ianto would probably get a kick out of being referred to as 'that nice young lad', though. "Do you know what it is?" she asked, that being somewhat more important right now than the futility of their attempts to remain undercover.

"Oh, I wouldn't know anything about that. A bit out of my experience, isn't it? I know what it did to him, though." She took a dignified sip of tea, and it was for all the world as though they were discussing her prize-winning peonies or the results of the Crufts show. "It made him happy."

Tosh had been taking notes; she looked up now, fingers hovering over her PDA. "Happy?"

"I thought it was drugs at first," she continued, and Gwen nodded in belated understanding. Chemical happy. She'd seen it when she was on the force, dealing with people under the influence. "But he was getting lucky, too. A bad kind of luck, the kind that brings good only to the detriment of others. Like... a monkey's paw, you know."

"So you put it in the safety box?" Gwen prompted.

Margaret nodded. "He didn't like that, let me tell you. I don't think I was so wrong about drugs. It was like he went into withdrawal. Horrid business. Quit his job, wouldn't do anything responsible. It was as though... he was acting on impulse, most of the time, and they weren't kind or gentle impulses. I haven't seen him for a few days now. I was hoping he'd work past it, get back to normal, but it seems I was wrong."

"We'll do what we can to help him," Gwen assured her, draining her tea and setting the empty cup on the silver tray on the coffee table. "As soon as we find him. You don't have any idea where he could be?"

"I'm sorry, no." She looked sorry, too, or at least regretful. This was one of the worst things about Torchwood - seeing how these things that came through the rift affected people, and not always for the better. Really, though, it was only in the details that this differed from police work. She had given bad news there, too, and even if that had at least been down to normal causes, the family still found it just as hard to understand how it could have happened.

As Gwen and Tosh started to rise, though, Margaret brightened. "Wait a moment, won't you? I have some biscuits you should take back with you! I've always loved baking, you know, but there's so few people left to enjoy it..." She took the tea tray and bustled off into the kitchen, and Gwen caught Tosh's eye as the two of them fought to contain giggles. It was a bit sad, really, Margaret seemed lovely, but the edges of loneliness had been creeping into her words a bit, there. There was every chance she'd outlived a great many of her friends and family. 

They accepted the biscuits gratefully, and Gwen had to bite down another laugh when Margaret left them at the doorstep with the instruction to, "Give that lovely boy a kiss for me, won't you?" with a smile and a wink that seemed rather saucy for someone of her age. 

They maintained the illusion of seriousness all the way back down the front path, until they were both sitting safely back in Tosh's car. Only there did they give in to the laughter that threatened to overwhelm them.

*

"Biscuits!"

Gwen's voice sang out through the Hub and Owen looked up from his game of solitaire with a frown. "I've been stuck here babysitting those two and you stopped for _biscuits_?" he yelled back, a bit put out. Not that babysitting them was that much effort, really, but still, a bit of consideration.

Course, that did mean there was biscuits, so... He closed the window, sauntering up to the main floor nonchalantly. Ianto'd already had the coffee on apparently, either through some bizarrely freakish ESP or creepy CCTV stalking or maybe just coincidence, and he was carrying down mugs full of it on a tray as Tosh opened up a box, unpacking some of the biscuits onto the lid. Jack was making his way down from his office, slower but no less eager, and Owen automatically cast a critical doctor's eye on his shoulder. He wasn't swinging that arm much, but it looked pretty relaxed, no obvious signs of excessive tension in the muscles.

"You can thank Margaret actually," Tosh told him, pushing the box lid across the table so Owen could reach it. Ianto passed out their coffees and sat next to her, perched on the arm of the old sofa, and for a moment the girls grinned at each other before Tosh dragged him down to plant a kiss on his cheek.

Ianto blinked. "I realise you're all caffeine hounds, but thank you would have been sufficient."

"It's from Margaret," Gwen explained cheerfully, "the old woman who owns the bank box. I think she has a crush on you."

"How does she even know who he is?" Owen asked, biting into a biscuit. God, they were still chewy. Bloody fantastic. Why couldn't more of their cases involve home baking? Maybe they should be looking for rift spikes and alien tech in local bakeries instead. "Aren't we supposed to be secret?"

"I'm beginning to think half of Cardiff knows who we are, and Ianto's not hard to find. 'S not hard to notice something odd about the tourist office, is it?"

"It would explain why most of my customers have local accents," Ianto deadpanned, tone so serious that Owen couldn't tell if he was having them on or not. "What did you find out?"

Gwen was too busy eating to answer, so Tosh picked up her PDA with her free hand, scrolling down through her notes as she spoke. "Her nephew Robert Bowen is the man who robbed the bank. He found the item, presumably after it fell through the Rift, and she took it away after it began to affect his behaviour. She likened it to an addictive drug that caused him to act as though he was on a chemical high, right down to going through withdrawal when he was separated from it."

"That sounds about right." Ianto turned to look at Jack expectantly, followed by both girls. Owen stole another biscuit.

"Probably exactly what it is," Jack said, and at the edge of his vision Owen saw him shrug, and then wince slightly. "A pleasure device. Not intended for humans, obviously, but there's hundreds of things just like it. Effortless highs, sex toys and weapons, the three things every civilisation wants more of. I went one place where you could get something that did all three. God, that was a blast - in more ways than one."

A mild Jack Harkness story, then, light on the details, but Owen still rolled his eyes, speaking through the last of a mouthful of biscuit. "You know no one believes this stuff, yeah?"

"Except me," Ianto volunteered, and Jack grinned at him lasciviously. Ianto cleared his throat. "So. Dangerous?"

"Well, it might just turn him into a hippie. Or it might overload his brain and kill him. We should probably get it off him. Okay, Gwen. Research friends he might be staying with. Tosh, see if you can run back readings for this morning, look for anything in the area of the bank that we could scan for. Owen, check hospitals for any suspicious injuries, these things tend to really fuck with your sense of self-preservation. First person to get results wins a prize." 

He clapped his hands to dismiss them, though he was the only one who didn't make a move to get to work - even Ianto obligingly started collecting mugs and replacing the lid on the box of biscuits as he muttered something about inappropriate rewards under his breath.

*

There was no need for Tosh to track Jack down; her "Got it!" echoed through the Hub. Used to all manner of distractions, neither Gwen nor Owen looked up from what they were doing, but Jack came jogging down the stairs from his office to come and stand behind her.

"Found something?" he asked.

"Barely. I think the device powered up in response to his emotions, just enough to pick it up. You can see the reaction here--" she pointed to a spike in one of the graphs she had pulled up on the screen, cycling through a few windows to show him which systems it had pinged on, "--and I think I can reconfigure a couple of PDAs to scan specifically for that frequency. The problem is, even with the spike in his emotions I'm not sure I could do an accurate scan of the city to track him. You're going to have to drive around and hope he gets within range of the short distance scanners."

As much as Jack loved driving, getting high on the speed and exhilaration, taking the gas-guzzling SUV through the streets of Cardiff looking for a single person didn't exactly sound like the best way to spend a day. Too many traffic lights, too many other cars, too many pedestrians - the prospect had none of the hallmarks of a true pleasure drive, the only potential way to break the tedium the CD player or attempts at decent conversation. "How short distance?"

"No more than three and a half kilometres, ideally less. I'll hook the PDA feeds into my station, there's a good chance I'll pick up the readings on my programs before they're strong enough to register for you. I just need ten minutes to set it all up."

Jack nodded; it wasn't ideal, but unfortunately not everything could be solved with guns and melodrama. A pity, really. Torchwood did guns and melodrama _well_. "Prep two sets. I'll take Ianto in the SUV, Gwen and Owen can fight over whose car to use." 

He left without waiting for her mumbled confirmation, attention already back on her work, yelling instructions at Owen and Gwen on his way to the kitchenette. Normally at this time of day Ianto would be in the Archives, moving things around under the guise of making them easier to find, though Jack privately suspected it was partly just busywork. With the case awaiting developments, though, he was keeping himself occupied in the upper Hub - restocking things right now, it looked like. 

"Sounds like we could be stuck in the SUV the rest of the day. Please tell me you have thermoses in here."

Ianto reached up to open a cupboard door wordlessly, revealing half a dozen of them sitting on a shelf. 

Jack blinked, fairly certain he hadn't seen most of those before, ever. "Okay, those have got to be new."

"It seemed like a good idea, with how often we have people rushing off god knows where. Wouldn't want anyone going into withdrawal." Pushing the sugar back into place, he finally turned, leaning back against the counter. His jacket was off, leaving him in a waistcoat and rolled-up shirt sleeves, and Jack took a moment to admire the view before reaching up to pull down two thermoses. The movement brought them within touching distance of each other, though neither made any attempt to close the gap.

Nor did Jack make much effort to move away. "You smell good," he murmured, taking in the scent of cinnamon soap, coffee beans, and underneath that an undeniably heady, male sort of smell.

Ianto's lips quirked in a smile, and Jack had the distinct impression that he was being humoured. "I took the liberty of showering and changing after someone shot me this morning. It seemed as though it would have been a health risk to keep working with my blood seeping out everywhere."

"Probably," Jack agreed drily. There was a surprising amount of alien tech that was blood activated. He suspected that this was not the priority consideration in other workplaces, in much the way that the drug policies in other workplaces were not based around the risk of retconning yourself out of existence. 

He lingered for a moment longer before pulling away. "I'll go see how Tosh is going with the scanners. Meet you by the SUV?" It's rhetorical, mostly, but he pauses anyway to catch Ianto's smile before leaving.

*

The sole high point of the long drive around Cardiff was the lazy, easy conversation they fell into. There was Sinatra in the CD player, volume low to provide a crooning backdrop as they worked their way methodically through the streets, and every so often one or the other or both of them would pick the song up for a few lines. Jack had a good singing voice, and Ianto worked hard to ignore the small thrill in his stomach every time Jack glances sideways at him with timelessly romantic words spilling from his lips.

_My funny Valentine, sweet comic Valentine..._

"I'm thinking of shamelessly commandeering the boardroom equipment to watch James Bond films," he commented, possibly slightly abruptly. The prospect seemed easier to deal with than the strange mood that the music was setting. There was, in his experience, very little _confusing_ about James Bond.

It did have the effect of making Jack stop singing, twisting the steering wheel round to bring them into a right-hand turn. "Is that an invitation to join?" he asked, slight quirk to his lips.

"It is your enormous tv screen," he pointed out. "If you're interested."

"The boardroom probably doesn't have the same ambience as making out in the back of a movie theatre." Jack winked at him, and he was shameless. Ianto didn't protest though, because they probably would end up making out (and maybe more, though he rather hoped they wouldn't be in the boardroom for that). "Would there be popcorn?"

"If you want."

"With butter. Plenty of butter."

Ianto remembered nights in his childhood when he and Rhiannon would douse their popcorn with icing sugar, gently shaking the bowls so it would circulate properly. He'd make two lots, he decided. "Angling for a heart attack, are you?"

"It'd be new." He grinned and slipped into song again, and this time Ianto just leaned back in his seat to listen.

_Look at me, I'm as helpless as a kitten up a tree..._

When Tosh's voice echoed through their comms Ianto had to resist the sudden urge to startle, and immediately wondered if either of them had left the 'speak' function on. Not that he thought Tosh would care about anything they'd said, and most of them had long since learned to tune out useless noise on the lines anyway. Not the point. Right.

"Jack, you're showing a hit to the east, a couple of kilometres from your location," she said, and in a moment of foresight that he'd appreciate a moment later Ianto grabbed onto the door handle to anchor himself just before Jack turned sharply to the left. It was little consolation that they'd both ultimately walk away from a crash (within a day or two, at least). Besides, organising a new vehicle would be a nightmare.

As soon as he had his balance back Ianto brought up the street map on his PDA. The blip hadn't shown up yet on their lower-powered scanners, but he had faith that if Tosh said it would work, then it would. "Down by the Taff, you mean?" he asked, frowning slightly.

"Clarence Road."

A moment after she confirmed, the readings hit the edge of his screen, and he nodded. "Thanks Tosh. Jack, there's there's a bike path that heads north along the river, and the bridge has a footpath. If he goes north best place for parking is a warehouse just before the bridge." He didn't suggest smashing through the fence, even if there was the likelihood that the SUV could handle the bank of the river easily enough - it was, after all, an SUV. Knowing Jack, though, he probably would, and that would be just a little bit conspicuous. Leaving him to field the phone calls from angry council members. Not his idea of fun.

At Jack's breakneck speed, though, they at least caught up to Robert quickly. It helped that he didn't seem to be going anywhere in particular, stumbling a little unsteadily down the side of the road and apparently talking to himself. 

"No need to ask if that's our guy," Jack quipped, bringing the SUV into the carpark and breaking sharply. They swung out of the car almost in unison, doors slamming behind them, and Ianto had time to think that this was nice, working with Jack. It was easy to fall into step with him as they headed towards Robert, both of them no doubt thinking that it'd be nice if they could do this quickly so they could wrap things up.

It was clearly the combined force of both of them hoping for an easy win that made things go wrong. He didn't know whether Robert recognised him or the SUV or just found two people striding purposefully toward him carrying strange technology threatening (particularly several hours after he'd robbed a bank and shot someone), but the expression on his face rapidly turned from blissed out to something akin to terror. "Don't come near me!" he warned them. "You can't have it!"

Jack held out his placatingly, showing they were empty. "Robert, we just want to talk. Can we do that?"

" _No!_ " He whirled around, haring off down the bike path, and Jack swore rather colourfully before following him.

"So much for that, then," Ianto muttered. The bitter cynicism made him feel better about running after a crazy person in Italian leather shoes. _And Robert's a bit mad too,_ he added privately with a faint huff of laughter.

As it turned out they didn't have to run far. Quite suddenly Robert left the path, going for the bank-- "He's headed for the water!" Jack yelled, perhaps a little pointlessly, a few seconds before their target cannonballed straight into the river.

"This," Jack announced, panting slightly, "is what I meant about self-preservation." He started peeling his coat off, pausing when he realised Ianto was doing the same.

"If you run out of air you'll waste time dying," Ianto told him shortly, folding his jacket and holding it out to Jack before moving to work on his tie. It was as well that he was used to suits; it didn't take long to tug off those things he didn't want ruined, kicking his shoes away. This was exceptionally stupid, and he wasn't going to think about that. Taking barely a second to regard the surface of the river, he stepped up to the edge, and jumped.

*

Part of Jack was faintly aware that he probably looked ridiculous, pacing along the riverbank with a jacket, waistcoat and tie draped over his arm, staring at the uneven surface of the water. He couldn't see what was happening - there was a disturbance, but no way to see what was causing it, whether Ianto was okay. More than ridiculous, though, he felt utterly useless, because Ianto was right. Even if he could hold his breath almost twice as long as people in this time period (something he'd been surprised to find out, but supposed made sense - three thousand years was a long time), they had no idea what to expect from Robert at this point, and if he dropped the device it would probably take longer than fifty seconds to find it on the bottom of the river. He'd always been better at running than swimming, anyway. He just... didn't like to stand on the sidelines. He was too used to taking the danger on himself.

It felt like forever until there were two bodies breaking the surface, Ianto spluttering out water and trying to push Robert onto the bank at the same time. In deference to his clothing, Jack dropped his own coat on the ground before putting them down and grabbing the kid round the armpits to pull him up. He wasn't not conscious.

"Hang on," Ianto said, and disappeared under the surface again. 

Jack had already started CPR; he'd been trained to do this so many times, over the years. Sometimes the methods differed slightly - first it had been moving the arms around, then manhandling people while they lay on their stomach - but the essentials always remained the same. There was something universal about attempting to breathe life back into a person, it seemed. It was easy, too, to get into the rhythm of it. He didn't even know this kid, but as always Jack was too stubborn to let death take anyone without a fight, and alright, maybe he had some issues there, but dammit he was sick of watching people die.

He paused in trying to restart Robert's heart to breathe into his mouth again, hoping to feel him start coughing up river water, but his lips remained rubbery and pliant and still. Moving back to compressions, he felt a rib crack under the pressure and winced. Seven, eight, nine, ten. " _Fuck_ ," he muttered. This was a lot more tiring than it looked, and he was glad he'd already lost his coat. It was great in winter, not so good when he was hot and sweaty with exertion.

He was at twenty six when Owen dropped down next to him, one of his medical toys in hand. "Shove over," he demanded, and Jack rocked back on his knees for a moment, then climbed to his feet to resume his watch over the river.

"Prognosis?" he asked, wondering how long Ianto had been under now.

"Think you were wasting your time, mate." Owen's voice was dismissive, but Jack could hear an edge to it. He thought sometimes people forgot that Owen was actually a bloody good doctor. Most of his patients were dead, but he still didn't like losing the ones that oughtn't be. He could hear movement behind him, and thought maybe he was trying anyway, or possibly just triple checking his original findings.

He made a mental note to get Owen a glass of scotch when they were back at the Hub. Someone would have to inform the aunt - Gwen, probably, she'd be good at that sort of thing, as much as anyone could be good at passing that sort of news on. They'd need an autopsy to see what affect the device had had on him, but there wouldn't be much of a cover up required. Maybe just an implication of drugs in his system, but for once they'd probably be able to give Margaret the right body. 

It was getting too easy to think of all this, he decided. He hated that he had to. Sometimes it was just no fun being the boss.

Ianto finally burst back out of the water, hair plastered to his face and the device in his hand, and somehow between them they managed to get him back on solid ground. Once safe, Ianto rolled onto his back, grinning giddily. "I don't even want to think about what might be in that water. Ducks probably shit in there. Aliens too," he announced in a cheery voice. "I think I have alien shit in my lungs."

"You make that sound like a good thing," Jack noted, staring at him curiously. His earpiece beeped, and he reached up to tap it automatically. "Tosh?"

"What's going on?" she asked; there was a note of worry in her voice that had Jack narrowing his eyes slightly at Ianto as he inspected the device in his hands in fascination. "The device is putting out a massive amount of energy."

"Yeah, I think we'd better put it in containment." He glanced at Owen and the medic nodded, getting up to jog over to where Gwen was keeping rubberneckers away. "Ianto, mind handing that over now?"

Ianto didn't move. "It's sort of buzzy," he said, turning it in his hands like a rubiks cube. It was colourful, Jack supposed, though not in the regimented, ordered way of a rubiks cube. "And shiny. The water kind of makes it shimmer."

One dead civilian, and one employee compromised by alien tech. This, Jack mused, was probably not their most successful mission ever.

*

They got the thing away from Ianto and into a containment box, and Owen decided that the effects would probably wear off in a few hours since exposure had been minimal. Jack ended up dumping Ianto in the back seat of the SUV while Gwen and Owen took the box and body; even if they got back first, Owen would be able to start work right away.

Knowing it wouldn't do any lasting harm made Ianto's mood a lot more amusing. He wouldn't sit up to buckle himself in, so Jack drove at a pace he called sedate and most of the team called sane while Ianto wriggled around on the seat, trying to get comfortable. "I feel really, really good," he told Jack beatifically, stretching lazily. Jack tried not to eye the way his wet shirt clung to him in the rearview mirror. "It's sort of like I'm high, except without wanting to eat everything. I bet there's drugs in the river. From when people flush them down the toilet so no one finds them."

"It's alien tech," Jack told him for the fourth time, which was just ludicrous for the relatively short drive back to the Hub. 

Ianto ignored him, humming along to I Get a Kick Out of You, and Jack tried to smother a grin. God, he wished he was getting this on CCTV. That was ok, there were cameras back in the Hub. No doubt he'd get something good enough to play back for Ianto in the morning. He'd much rather that be the memory he took away from this debacle than anything else - Ianto would probably go all sorts of interesting colours at the indignity of his current behaviour. "We'll be back in a couple of minutes," he assured him, flicking a quick glance back as the road changed from James Street to Bute Place. "Then we can get you dry and you can squirm around somewhere more comfortable than the back of the car."

"Mmmm," Ianto agreed. "When you crash this car the new one has to be nice to sleep in."

The muzzy certainty in his voice made Jack laugh - and really, at the end of the day, that was all he could ask for.


	3. And Then, There Was Sex

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was not originally part of the story. When Children of Earth aired I posted a piece of fic after each episode, and this was the first one. I decided to leave it in and just make it chapter three when reposting.

Ianto had a STRONG FEELING that Jack was laughing at him. On the inside, at least, because he was fairly sure it would be more than a strong feeling if he had been laughing on the outside. On the other hand, he didn't particularly care, when his head was all sort of light and giddy and maybe that was because he'd just swum around in the Taff for several minutes without breathing, which was really quite awesome, or possibly it was the alien happiness-device playing havoc with his brain chemistry, but either way, he was enjoying himself far too much to be bothered with Jack's reaction.

"You're quite brilliant," he told Tosh, apropos of nothing. "I would hug you if I wasn't so wet."

Jack dragged him back to his quarters to get dry and changed.

He had already ruined two suits today, and besides he couldn't really be bothered with all the buttons, so instead he just put on a pair of jeans and a hoody. They were worn and comfortable, old things that he'd worn on weekends around the house when he worked in London and things needed repairing, when Lisa would laugh and pretend to swoon in the face of his all-encompassing manliness as he attempted to tighten the pipes under the sink. Jack never pretended to swoon in the face of his all-encompassing manliness, but he did make Ianto want to lick him in the strangest of places, like his collarbone and the palm of his hand.

"James Bond," he declared, and Jack raised an eyebrow and twitched around the mouth like he was trying not to smirk, and Ianto pondered the merits of biting him. There were quite a lot of merits to the idea, actually. Enough to make him pause with the DVD in his hand, looking at Jack consideringly until his expression changed from tryingnottosmirk to Iwonderwhatyou'lldonow. Very carefully, because his limbs felt a little bit like they were not entirely his own (and maybe actually he was theirs, and instead of his brain telling them what to do they told his brain what they were about to do and he wasn't quite fast enough to stop them), he put the DVD box down on his desk and stepped forward to nuzzle Jack under the line of his jaw. He smelled very, very good. 

"I'm going to bite you now," he informed him, and bit him.

"So you are," Jack said. "Though that's actually only a very small part of me."

This was true, Ianto mused. Jack was quite tall compared to the average British male of this era, and sturdily built (with quite an attractive jawline), which gave rather a lot of potential biting area. "You're wearing too many clothes to bite anywhere else," he pointed out, quite reasonably. Well, maybe not _anywhere_ else, as his face was still entirely free of clothing, and after a pause to acknowledge this he bit - nipped, really - Jack on the cheek, right above the bone. And then the earlobe, just for good measure.

"I think the universe hates me," said Jack, and, "this is a really bad idea," and then he put his mouth in direct biting position, so Ianto gnawed gently on his lower lip as well. It was only polite after all.

Actually, he felt a little bit drunk. "I feel a little bit drunk," he told Jack, and pushed him back onto his bed. He loved his bed. It was extremely comfortable and he'd bought rather decadent sheeting and a duvet cover that was sort of dark red-purple-cranberry colour and matched the sheets and god, really, his whole room was just so damn classy. Even if it was underground in a secret sci-fi base. Though maybe that just added to the classiness, it was very secret agent James Bond.

He had to focus to undo all the stupid buttons on Jack's shirt, and then there was _braces_ and a _t-shirt_ and _goddamn_ Jack wore too many clothes for all the sex stories he told. How the hell did he get naked at a moment's notice when confronted with tentacles and contortionists? It didn't make any sense. Apparently the stories were all bullshit. Maybe he was actually a virgin. In the future, everyone was born from test-tubes and there _was_ no sex, but he was really good at misdirecting people to keep the timelines clean. Yeah. That had to be it. (For that matter, he'd seen his bedroom once, and that was not a bed you invited people back to.) "It's okay," he assured Jack, "I won't tell anyone."

"What?" Jack asked, but then Ianto finally got rid of all his stupid shirts and started licking him and instead he made a somewhat unintelligible noise.

"Mmm," Ianto said.

"Oh," agreed Jack.

Honestly, Ianto thought he would probably be content to just lie here licking and laving and all sorts of other lovely things starting with L for quite some time. Jack tasted sort of like pheromones and sort of like sweat and sort of like the erotic noises that spilled from his throat when he nipped and sucked at his nipples and his hands twisted into the fabric of Ianto's sweater, tugging him closer. Ianto's hands were angling for a rather less innocent place, but for some reason Jack felt the need to wear a belt with his braces for extra bracing power, so it was taking him rather longer than was ideal. He made a frustrated noise, and then Jack laughed, though he wasn't entirely sure why. Maybe Jack was just a sadist. He briefly considered hiding all his belts, and then decided it wasn't worth the effort.

He succeeded, finally, because Ianto made a point of succeeding at everything (except for saving Lisa, and dying, but he was not going to dwell on either of those things right now when there was a surprisingly attractive nearly-naked man in his room), and of course he had seen other mens' penises before, out of the corner of his eye from at least two urinals away in the bathroom, but he certainly had never touched one, nor dwelled on how his felt when he was engaged in solo-penis-touching exercises in the privacy of his own home. This, he decided, had been a mistake, because Jack's was really sort of pretty.

Ianto suspected Jack would probably not appreciate that choice of adjective, so he kept it to himself.

When he slid his hand up Jack panted, and when he ducked down to lick a firm stripe from base to tip he groaned (and then panted some more) which was all, really, very delicious. He kind of wanted to record the noises Jack was making and eat them, which made him somewhat disappointed that that didn't make any sense at all. Still, his mouth watered, and he had the distinct urge to rub up against Jack's leg where he was hard in his jeans. With an extreme force of will he managed to rock back on his knees until he was mostly sitting up. "Fuck me," he told Jack.

"Uh," Jack replied, as though he wasn't entirely certain what was happening. "Are you sure?"

"Yup," Ianto said.

"It's just, you're under the influence of alien technology."

"I don't think their master plan involves you putting your cock up my arse." He paused to consider the possibility. "Though if it did, that would be okay. Their dominion would probably be quite fun."

"Do you have any lube?" Jack asked.

 

Ianto's four hundred thread count sheets felt really good all scrunched up inside his fists. "Ohgodyes," he moaned, squeezing his eyes closed, then opening them again, then arching his back and rolling his head back and working his legs up further around Jack's hips. 

"Uh-huh," Jack breathed, and pushed his hips forward a little bit more. A jolt ran through all of Ianto's muscles and he mewed. That was kind of embarrassing, actually. He was fairly sure he was not a cat, even if that did feel _really really good_. 

The aliens were free to take over Earth as soon as they wanted. He'd be okay. They'd probably all be out of a job, but that would just give them more time to do this. It wasn't like they paid rent on the Hub ( _to lease: one underground base, incl. sewer entrance and off-street parking, suitable for secret crime-fighting agency_ ) so they'd be fine for living space, and there'd be a lot less paperwork to worry about.

Teeth scraped across his throat and Jack pulled back until Ianto felt strangely empty but for the single stretched point where the head of Jack's cock still rested inside his body, and then Jack snapped his hips forward and he made a sound that started as a generic cry and ended with something that entirely wasn't a gurgle.

Oh, _god_. Oh fuck. He tried to wriggle further down the bed, whining softly when he couldn't get anymore of Jack _in_ him, and Jack laughed breathlessly and he was probably really going to hurt later and he didn't _care_. "Please," he whimpered, and his voice sounded faintly desolate.

Jack was a good boyfriend, he decided, when he started to move steadily, sucking the pulse point in his neck and it was really thoroughly depressing that he had never done this before, because while Lisa had seriously lacked the necessary parts, there were all sorts of enterprising retail businesses that helped to rectify these problems. Though he thought it might be a whole different thing, without the heat and the feeling of bare flesh and the heavy weight of Jack hanging over him and, yes, alright, maybe the crazy alien technology that may or may not be contributing to his rather giddy mental state.

(Though, really, he rather hoped that this would still be good without that. He didn't think dating Jack would be as much fun otherwise.)

He muttered something that didn't make sense even to him, hands sliding up the mattress under his pillow to grip the wooden bars of the headboard and tensed his muscles just to make Jack swear and push harder into him. His cock was pressed between them all wrapped in the heat of their bodies and the faint scratch of body hair and damp and hard and slick (slick, that was a good word, sounded very much like how it was) and he didn't understand why everyone thought this was such a disgustingly emasculating thing to do when it felt so _good_ and nothing at all like he was a girl, not the way his muscles were working overtime like he'd run a marathon or won a wrestling tournament or writhed around quite a lot as Jack fucked him just like _that_ and made him come, hard and rather loud and _yesyesyes_ , he could _feel_ the way Jack's cock thickened even further and twitched inside him right before he groaned as though he was in pain.

So that was what it felt like when someone came inside you. Unngh.

Jack pulled out, slowly, but he almost wanted to cry at the loss (come seeped out of him and trickled down his skin, a really strange feeling, but he didn't _care_ ) until he realised that now he could let go of the headboard and flop across Jack's body, tired and well-used and satisfied.

And really fucking giddy.

"I like sex," he mumbled, and this time he understood when Jack chuckled softly, winding fingers into his hair.


End file.
